Global Partners in Education Journal April 2013, Vol. 3 No. 1, pp. 70-78 www.gpejournal.org ISSN 2163-758X 70 SUMMIMNG UP: FIRST EXPERIENCE OF FOUR CIS UNIVERSITIES IN IMPLEMENTING A CROSS-CULTURAL INTERNET PROJECT Alla L. Nazarenko Ludmila G. Sizykh Victoria A. Fandei Faculty of Foreign Languages Lomonosov Moscow State University Elena A. Malashenko Faculty of Medical Ecology Sakharov International University of Ecology Svitlana L. Bobyr Department of Pedagogy and FLT Methodology Shevchenko Chernihiv National Teacher Training University Baktygul Zh. Kurmanova Department of the Kazakh Language Aktuybinsk State University named after Kudaibergen Zhubanov Abstract The article describes the first experience of four universities of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in conducting an international intercultural project based on the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The goal of the project for the students was to introduce the traditions of hospitality existing in their cultural world to all the partners and to increase their own cross- cultural awareness. Implementing the project method with active use of various technologies including telecommunication systems, wikispaces.com, video technologies, etc. made it possible to solve a number of didactic tasks and get promising results. Introduction The rapid development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has affected all spheres of human activity and social institutions including education. First and foremost, education could not but adopt new technologies for their literally miraculous possibilities in terms of providing access to the richest educational and cultural resources existing in the world and the ability to ensure communication with colleagues in any corner of the globe to discuss mutually interesting issues. Making proper didactic use of ICT can contribute to raising the standards of education, increasing its quality and efficacy. It also opens up new opportunities for organizing cooperation and collaboration between universities enabling them to tackle issues topical for the whole globalized world.